Unbound

“It’s injured,” an Inquisitor pointed out, staring at his own broken sword in annoyance. Behind them, well away from the downed Dragon, their lessers surged around the impediment on their way toward the frontlines. All was wet, squelching mud and a splashy din among the clattering armor and shouted Skills. “Now’s our chance. Kill it now!”

“You kill it,” another Inquisitor shot back, while blood seeped from a gash across his forehead. “I’ll not risk my life in jaws large enough to swallow half a city block.”

“Get out of my way, you cowards,” said a voice like rolling shale. The Inquisitors turned to see a seven foot tall giant in platemail push through the press of Hierocratic bodies. The crest of the Paladins shone like gold upon his crimson armor, and his unsheathed greatsword glimmered in the failing light. He grunted, igniting the length of steel until it burned like a torch. “I’ll end the monstrosity, and then we can focus on the real enemy.”

“Draconic Stormfall!”

The clueless Hierocratic dogs were driven into the mud as a woman in blue and white armor hit the Paladin spear-first. Water burst upward and away, blasted out by a ring of crackling lightning that swept through it and into the Inquisitors. Their screams were high and short before they ended on their backs in the shallow water, and the Paladin's own shout was a gurgling rush of blood and returning waves.

“You heinous, heathen doggglhgh!” he said, before Vess put all of her considerable Strength behind her partisan and twisted.

You Have Killed A Paladin Of The Pathless!XP Earned!

“Eugh! You!” One Inquisitor rose to his feet, swiftly followed by another. “Diurnal Re—!”

“Spear of Tribulations,” she hissed, and ten silver Spears dropped from the sky onto their armored heads.

XP Earned!

Vess yanked her partisan free and whipped it to her side, wicking the blood away as the waters rushed back around her feet. Her eyes found the humongous head of the golden Dragon and went wide. “Yintarion.”

She leaped into the air, her legs carrying her right to the Dusk Dragon’s giant eye. It was closed, but a heavy rasp bubbled the waters around his lips, and her presence seemed to stir him further.

“I have upheld my bargain, little Dragoon,” he rumbled and the water frothed. “Leave me to die.”

Vess’ brows drew down. “That is idiotic. You can help, still! Fight with me!”

“No.” A flash of blue and white, and a status screen rolled before Vess’ eyes.

Health: 240/244,349,003

She paled, and felt a cold sweat spring across her back. For a creature his size, so little Health was like clinging to the edge of death itself. If those Inquisitors had managed a proper strike, they truly could have killed him.

Yintarion rumbled as if agreeing with her frantic thoughts. “The Creature held me too long. It wore me, until I became so thin that little else remains. I’ve not even the strength to shift my tail. I am a shell of scales, all but empty.”

Vess pressed a hand to the Dragon’s jaw, feeling a chill that had not been evident during their wild flight. “We can heal you. We have Chanters and…and Felix! Felix can help, I’m sure of it.”

Something flickered in the Dragon’s Spirit, there and gone. It was too dim to be hope, and too stern to be joy. It felt…like mulish obstinance.

“Little Dragoon, I—”

“A Dragon…a Dusk Dragon?”

Vess spun toward the new arrival, partisan lifted between them. A woman, wearing some sort of high Tier armor all in white; her face was bare, revealing a sharp chin, aquiline nose, and piercing amber eyes beneath a tight bun of raven-black hair. Her gaze did not waver from the dull golden bulk of the Dragon. “You, girl. It called you Dragoon, and I see the hallmarks of apprenticeship upon you. Explain this. How is this possible?”

Vess stared at the woman, her Mind still piecing together the scenario from the chaos of war that surrounded them. It took Vess too long to recognize the shape of the woman’s armor from her father’s old tomes on the Hierocracy. An old book she studied long ago, but one put diligently to memory; after all, it was important to know your enemy. “High Guard.”

“I said: explain. Now. How does our greatest foe still live?”

“Our?”

The strikingly beautiful woman cocked her head before lifting the gleaming, orichalcum spear in her hands. It was taller than Felix and tipped with a wide, hooked blade meant for rending and tearing. “Do you not recognize me?”

Vess shifted her stance, letting a deep music begin to flow within her. A dance she could almost remember flitted across her senses, distracting her from the High Guard’s words. “I have never seen you before in my life.”

“Tch,” the woman said, her neutral face turning to a sneer. “Does the order truly keep such poor records? A hundred years ago, I was on the lips of anyone who dared hold the spear; a prodigy such that the Dragoons have not seen since before the Betrayal. I am Spear, named for my mastery.” A gleeful light swelled from the woman’s features, and Vess had to lock her knees as an almost casual pressure tried to shove her to the ground. “And I shall be the first in Ages to slay a Dusk Dragon. Step aside.”

The music rose in her veins, a steady, vibrant sonata that set her pathways alight and slipped around the High Guard’s Spiritual pressure. Her Body wished to move, to step upon the Tempered path that lay before them, oh so tantalizingly close. All three of her Aspects were on the cusp, and they were reminding her of that fact. Vess’ Perception took in Yintarion’s closing eyes, already rolling back as his breath dropped into a hitching gasp. She clenched her jaw. “I do not know you, and you will keep away from this Dragon.”

The High Guard paused and her face morphed between surprise and anger so seamlessly that Vess felt a touch dizzy—or perhaps that was the notes that rolled through her chest and belly, all but driving the air from her lungs.

“Childish rebellion,” the woman scoffed. “Did the Dragon promise you riches? Power? That is their way, apprentice. They entice and tempt, until they have you in their grasp…Out of respect for our shared order, I shall ask this once: step aside, and I’ll let you live after I’ve killed this monstrosity.”

That rush of strings sounded again from within Vess’ core. This time, it was not just the sonata that drove her to move, but a piece of Harmony that sang of sorrow, cold rage, and a burning compassion that surprised her. Yet it was being crushed by the weight of buzzing interference, a knot that mangled that Harmony until all the heat and passion faded into a stolid, bitter acceptance.

Yinterion…

Vess could feel more than just Yinterion’s Health. Their Link was still there, faint but far more noticeable outside the Breach, and she could feel the damage to his Mind, Body, and Spirit. Irreparable damage, perhaps. As he’d said, the Creature’s possession had taken a terrible toll.

“Girl,” Spear growled. “Move or die along with it.”

The power the Dragon had embraced and rejected had changed it. A choice had been made. Vess felt at their Link, the bond that had been forged by a Primordial and her own heritage, felt where that faint music swelled—where it melded with the song in her veins, becoming something deeper and swifter. Something more.

Do You Choose To Save Him?

Yes/No

Forgive me, Yintarion. You are not yet done.

“What is—!” The High Guard threw her arm up as a gold, blue, and white-green radiance exploded all around them.

Fine, little Dragoon.

A Choice Is Made.

Vess was hurled from her feet, lifted by a streamer of Mana and Essence that stabbed through every single one of her Gates at once. She rang like a bell, her temple roaring into the nighttime sky as a Dragon screamed its last.

All Choices Have Consequences.

Bear Your Burdens Well, Vessilia Dayne.

“Put it there! There!” Alister said, jabbing a greasy finger toward an array. An Inscriptionist ran to where he pointed, robes flapping and stylus outstretched as they began to sketch sigils. “Keep it in balance!”

“Alister! We need that ready now!”

“Soon, Zara! Soon!” The force mage shouted back, sparing a single glance for the battlefield that had descended into utter madness. A hole in the sky, the return of their friends, and a blighted Dragon had descended on them. The battle had changed in an instant as the field flooded and Nagafolk seized Hierocratic soldiers in their powerful jaws, while some sort of draconic monstrosities surged deeper behind enemy lines.

Now people were going wild on the walls, many of them rushing down the battlements to join the next wave of combatants. Nevermind that many of them bore deep wounds or flagging Stamina; men and women in purple cloaks ran up and down the parade ground, long flags waving in the winds. Flags that depicted a burning eye upon a field of blue. And all around them, a chant.

“Nagast! The Fiend! Nagast! The Fiend!”

Yet all of that was meaningless, as the three Manaships still retained their cannons. They had blasted apart Zara’s cobbled together shielding, and the next volley should have annihilated them all where they stood…but it had never arrived. Instead, the cannons had trained themselves upon a riotous display of violence that dominated the battlefield, shooting several times and pockmarking the terrain but failing to stop it. Alister couldn’t make out the details, but he’d seen Felix in action enough times to know his handiwork.

Just keep them busy, Felix. Just a little longer.

Sigladry is level 70!

Focus is level 68!

Siege Weapon Mastery is level 13!

Alister put his stylus to work, inscribing another set of sigils beneath the stability array. The weapon was so close to finished, and yet so far. Each time they’d attempted to use it, something else had failed, and most recently the backlash of offloading so much Mana had set the entire frame swaying backward alarmingly. “There’s a leak on the collection array! Stop feeding it!”

“On it, sir!”

The mages around him hustled just as fast as Alister, each scrawling lines of smoking light onto the weapon while another mage stumbled back from the collection plate, his palm red and in clear pain.

“Step back until we fix this,” Alister said to the Apprentice Tier but they weren’t listening. Instead, the mage was staring out into the distance, mouth open and eyes wide.

“How will we survive this?” the mage asked, only to receive a sharp slap on the back that nearly jolted him out of his boots.

“Don’t worry. Didn’t you hear? The Fiend is returned,” Atar said, out of breath. The Apprentice Tier stuttered something but Alister didn’t pay much attention, his eyes riveted on Atar. The fire mage had hollow cheeks, blood crusted to his face, and he was leaning heavily on his stave, but his Health was high enough.

“Atar. Your team?”

“Down at the gate. The fools can’t target anything with that Dragon in the way, so they’re lining up to get onto the field.”

Alister paled. “It’s a meat grinder down there.”

“They’ll be fine,” Atar said, gesturing beyond the crenelations. “See?”

Alister glanced backward in time to witness the flooded field begin to rapidly ice over. Behind that front of frost came the fifteen-stride tall Risi Warriors bearing axes and hammers taller than most Humans. The Frost Giants crashed into the Inquisitors and Paladins that had struggled closer to the city walls, smashing them flat before a slew of Sparkbolts, Ice Arrows, and Shadow Jaws followed. Atar’s team of mages flowed behind, led at the front by a slight woman with a whirling chain.

“Evie and the Frost Giants will provide them with the cover they need,” Atar continued. He smacked the weapon beside them with his stave. “While they do that, I’m here to help. What needs doing?”

“Right.”

The two of them leaned in, Alister completing his work on the frame while Atar ran his Perception across the whole of the weapon. With swift, sure strokes of his stave, the fire mage corrected several unnoticed imbalances in the complicated network of arrays. “Here, the crucible wasn’t pulling the right amounts from the collection array. I’ve patched it, but it’ll pull a lot all at once.”

“Will it work?” Alister asked, sweating as explosions rocked the wall. “Will it fire?”

Atar grimaced. “One way to find out.”

The fire mage reached out to grasp the inscribed handles on the weapon, just above the standing platform, but Alister stopped him. “I’ve got this side. Take the other one, Glyphmaster.”

Atar smirked. “Fine. But you drop it the moment you feel Mana drain, right?”

“Right.” Alister set his jaw and grasped the handle, feeling a jolt as the array initialized and began pulling on his channels. His other hand twisted in the tarp that covered the front of his creation, and he took a deep breath. “Ready, my love?”

let us rain fire upon our foes, and lay waste to their grandeur.

“Who was—?” Alister began, but Atar’s pale face stopped his words.

“I’ll tell you,” Atar said, teeth bared. Not at Alister, but at something else entirely. “Later. For now, unveil your masterpiece.”

Alister ripped the tarp away, revealing a weapon that only nominally resembled a ballista but was formed more like a massive scorpion’s tail. Sigils and glyphs lit up along its frame, lines that sizzled and popped as more and more power flooded through its collection array, until the curving barrel blazed with blue and orange spirals. A discordant hum shook the air, forcing the other inscriptionists back, hands over their ears.

Atar laid his hand over Alisters, lacing their fingers and shouting above the din. “Together!”

“Together!”

together! and let the world burn!

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